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The Hot Lap

Just a damn spin around the neighborhood. Usually at night. Usually after a few beers. Often alone. Just for the goddamn fun of it.

The streetlights cast an odd pall. The flickering televisions inside the homes of the sedentary masses seem like airport landing lights, and I’m in flight. It’s the closest thing I get to complete peace these days. Times have gotten stressful and have stayed there, but I’ve got the hot lap.

There’s no such thing as serenity anymore, but there’s a bastardization of it. The day cools off enough to be pleasant, and without any hesitation, without the need to strap on a camelbak or tighten straps on my shoes (flip flops will do), without a helmet and without lights, there’s the hot lap, the quick push, the only way to truly tell if you’re still feeling anything at all. Unplugged. Un-politicized. No pay. No bills. No angle. No barter. Pedal over pedal. Rubber thwapping. Chain squealing.

About D2

I am a writer and a photographer. I never killed a man in Reno, but I once rode a bike through a casino in Vegas. Bikes are cool, huevos rancheros are for breakfast, whiskey is for dinner. Denver, Colorado, USA

Right on. I used to pedicab in Austin, and one of my favorite times was riding home from the garage at 3-4am. Riding home from downtown, everything was quiet. The only people out were the cleanup crews getting ready for another day. The drunks and assholes had all gone home and were about to be nursing the hangovers that I hoped they’d suffer. Places that had thousands of people during the day, were empty. Even after a hard night, I would take the long way home. It was the in-between time. A few miles to home. Too early for the early birds, too late for the party crowd. Little but me, the sound of my tires, and the few freaks left in the pre-dawn hours. The city was mine.

Hot Lap! That has a very nice ring to it. Here it’s more of an out-and-back. A fast run down the bike path along the creek to the Pacific Ocean, feel the waves, smell the salt water and then hammer back. At times, the fog rolls in and it’s a rushing sensory deprivation tank all the way back home. No lights means you’re heads down, following the yellow line, occasionally with the paceline of drinking (now drunken) pals hammering behind – life distilled.

Ditto on the hot lap last night – flips flops on platforms, cotton shorts, and a cowboy shirt. I have to admit it was inspired by reading G. Petersons new book. After a few pages I felt the need to get out and “just ride”.

Lately I have been waiting until sun down to go out and ride the 24″ DJ. No one around, relearning skills, listening to the rubber role and the hub sing. It is the best feeling around. Just me, a curb and my bike. we will see if I go for it tonight.

Thats it, I am out on the 1970s singlespeed German folder tonite down here in NZ winter. She has been in the closet way too long. Time to “bust” out 20″ dynamo lit minivixen with my FHS wrestling team flipflops gifted from Moenkopi when we did The Grand Dec 2011. It was a merry xmas.

Click here to see the master of the “hot lap”. If this doesn’t make you do whatever it is you do a little bit better and push a little bit harder, then you have no soul.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4oLSYSJO5Ik

love this. Next time I’m doing the hot lap I’ll think on this post and know I’m not alone.

nice name too. I was still calling it the ‘whore-tour’ (pronounced in Canuck it rhymes) from when I was living in sketch hoods in Toronto and the ladies were out workin their corners.
‘Hot lap’ is much more civilized and representative of how those ride go now that I’m out of T.O.

Y’know, when I first read this post, I was just back from a 57-mile “hot lap” around Lake Washington, almost commented, but realized it was pointless.

Yesterday, I rode ten miles of dead-flat, butter-smooth rail trail at an average pace under six MPH. I was riding wing man for my old climbing and skiing buddy JB, who ranks among the 6% or so who survive glioblastoma brain cancer. Dude rides a ‘bent trike with right-hand controls and he left it all out there on the eastern shore of Lake Sammamish. Now that’s a hot “hot lap.”